dr. Edmond Offermann and his wife Maja – Amra Serdarević live in Sarajevo, and today, July 23, they were handed lifetime cards for the use of the Trebević cable car.
Let us recall that the Dutch scientist and philanthropist Offermann initiated the rebuilding of the Trebević cable car and was the main donor for its construction. Then he donated 7 million KM for the revitalization of this symbol of Sarajevo.
Offermann’s love for his wife , namely, Maja – Amra Serdarević, was “to blame” for the generous donation. She was born in Sarajevo, from where she left for postgraduate studies in America in 1984.
The distinguished physicist spoke for the Radiosarajevo.ba portal about the love that builds cable cars and his first arrival in Sarajevo.
“Maja and I are nuclear physicists, we met at the University of Illinois in America. She was working on her master’s thesis in America, and I came from the Netherlands as a postdoctoral fellow. I visited Sarajevo for the first time in December 1988 for the winter holidays, and I rode the cable car for the first and only time before the war in the summer of 1990 with Maja and her nephews ,” says Offermann.
Not long after Offerman’s first ride on the Sarajevo cable car, the aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina began. On March 3, 1992, members of the JNA and Serbian units killed the guard of the Trebević cable car, Rama Biber. During the aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995, the cable car was completely destroyed.
“When the cable car was destroyed, I talked to my friends, the architect Aida Daidžić , who has since passed away, and the writer Kaća Čelan , and I said: ‘ I’m going to rebuild the cable car, no matter what.’ It was still in the 90s and that idea continued to live with me.
At some point I started googling a bit about the cable car and came across Professor Anta Domazet who was doing a study with a student on what it would take to revitalize the cable car. I felt that the idea of revitalizing the cable car is alive. I invited a group from Sarajevo to Switzerland, there we had a cable car that was dismantled and the Swiss agreed to donate it. We came back here at the end to speed up the project, and it took ten years in total ,” says our interlocutor.
In addition to the construction of the cable car, he also influenced the development of education in our country, and his donations for the development of physics at the University of Sarajevo (UNSA) are particularly significant.
Namely, Offermann donated multimillion-dollar funds for the complete renovation of all rooms, the purchase of capital research equipment and the modernization of the entire teaching infrastructure at the Department of Physics of the University of Sarajevo – Faculty of Science and Mathematics, and is the initiator and main financier of the project to establish the Sarajevo Ion Accelerator at the University of Sarajevo. .
“For me, it was very important to restore dignity to older people after the war , the cable car was an important part of their lives.
And, as far as I’m concerned, I’m completely dedicated to physics. For me, it is an important part of life, thanks to physics I also met my wife . Maja, our son Jan and I founded the ‘Three Physicists’ foundation and renovated the entire scientific research and teaching infrastructure of the Department of Physics. We have ensured that research in the physics department can be carried out at a very high level and that people do not have to go to Zagreb or Belgrade to do their theses,” explains Offermann.
We ask the physicist how often he visits the town below Trebević.
“I am in Sarajevo at least three times a year, I visit my mother-in-law (97) , I love the people in the city, they are the ones who make the city. I like the slow progress I see in the city, the new Sarajevo railway and trams,” says Offermann.
Nuclear physicist Maja – Amra Serdarević follows our conversation, we ask how much the lifelong cards for the use of the Trebević cable car handed to them by JP Sarajevo mean.
“Whenever I come with Eddy to the cable car, I show my Bosnian identity card and pay the price of the ticket that is intended for the people of Sarajevo, then they ask if he has an identity card. I refuse to pay the ticket for him as if he is a tourist, so I say: ‘Do you know who this is’ and then they recognize him. I’m glad I don’t have to explain anymore. Otherwise, Eddy would never do it like that and explain, he would have paid, but I…” Maja – Amra Serdarević says with a smile to the Radiosarajevo.ba portal.
Let’s also add that Offermann financially supports the training of employees and students of the Physics Department of the Faculty of Science at CERN and other renowned scientific research centers, and is one of the initiators of the signing of the Cooperation Agreement between CERN and the University of Sarajevo, which was signed in 2020. . year.
For his generosity dr. Edmond Offermann was awarded the Honorary Citizen of the City of Sarajevo award, but he then pointed out: “For me, the greatest rewards are the friends I met here and the memories I create with my family in Sarajevo.”
These very words of his are engraved on a plaque located at the station of the Trebević cable car.
Also, in December 2022, the University of Sarajevo awarded Dr. Offermann an Honorary Doctorate from UNSA .
Source: radiosarajevo.ba
